


Ridiculous and Completely Unnecessary

by tanukiham



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M, I have no idea what to tag any of this, It's just an OC, and someone who is basically an OC, self indulgent nonsense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-09-25 14:52:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9825323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tanukiham/pseuds/tanukiham
Summary: Barker doesn't know why he's not happy, but Ruvena is right there, and really he'll do anything she asks of him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't sleep so I wrote a thing. It exists in The Other Hawke universe, so yeah. This is one of the things Barker and Rue get up to while Carver is in Starkhaven.

It doesn't feel real until Ruvena whoops at him, slapping his back, and says, "So we're getting tattooed, right?"

"Absolutely not," Barker tells her because _no_ , it is ridiculous and, he thinks, completely unnecessary.

But the _look_ she gives him. "Don't be such a _stick_. If it was _me_ with the promotion, you'd do it, right?"

The strange thing is that he would, for her, because she would be his Knight Corporal then and ... and he doesn't know. The tattooing was always Hawke's thing, something he did with his favourites, and Barker does not feel he has any right to it. When he tries to put this into words, however, Ruvena just gives him that look again.

"He _asked_ you. No-one's fault but yours you said no." And then she cocks her fists on her hips, frowning as hard as his mother ever did. "I want a tattoo. Let's get Kirkwall crests. I know exactly where I want to put it."

Which is how Barker finds himself bent over the tattoist's bench, slightly the worse for drink, with a sadistic bastard stabbing ink under his skin.

His shoulder aches. Every time he looks up, though, Ruvena is right there, grinning at him and necking rum out of a bottle. "Looking good, Barks," she says, and Barker has to look away because he feels like he might be going to faint.

When it's over Ruvena hands him the bottle and takes his place, but instead of leaning over the bench she unlaces her trousers and pulls her shirt up to her breasts, resting her weight back on her elbows and says, "Do it low. Right above my smalls. Want me to pull them down?"

And then she has it done there, just above the line of hair Barker knows he shouldn't be looking at. He tries not to see the way her belly rises smooth and flat to her ribs, the underside of the band that keeps her breasts in place, or the slope of her neck as she twists to grin at him.

"Keep Hugh out, will you? He always wants to watch."

Barker does so, standing guard at the tent-flap, but he can't help glancing over his shoulder to check on her. She's sweating, her brow beaded with it and her lip caught in her teeth but when she catches him looking she chuckles at him. "Not so bad, is it?"

His shoulder _aches_. But. "Not _so_ bad. But permanent, nevertheless."

"That's the whole _point_." The tattooist is finished, and starts to put a dressing on her, winding the bandage about her hips. "Ink is for things you don't ever want to forget."

That is what Hawke always said, and Barker wonders why anyone but himself would want to remember the day he was promoted to Knight Corporal.

Still, it seems more excuse than anything else, and then Ruvena is fastening her trousers and following him out to where Hugh is sullenly waiting his turn, propped up on a barrel like a sack of flour.

"I don't get why _he_ got to watch," Hugh says, giving Barker a dire look, but Ruvena just laughs at him, throwing an arm around Barker's shoulders and reaching for the rum bottle.

"Because it's _Barks_ -day, don't you know? Go get your ink, lackwit."

She stays warm against his side while they wait, handing the bottle between them. It's a cool night, the wind off the harbour rich and foul but unmistakably Kirkwall. Barker thinks about the crest dug into his shoulder like a brand, and the permanence of ink, and how much he loves this city. For all her failings, Kirkwall is, well, _Kirkwall_. Violent and unpredictable and impossible. By choice, he would never go anywhere else. His family's here. His _knights_ (they are his now, Maker bless them all) are here. Perhaps it makes sense, then, to mark her deep in his skin. But he feels that what he has had marked in him is less Kirkwall and more simply a consequence of Ruvena's will.

He finds he doesn't mind that as much as perhaps he should.

With Hugh done they go to the Hanged Man. There is nowhere else to go; too many of the other taverns in the city have forbidden Templars even out of uniform, and it is cheaper than the Blooming Rose. Plus, of course, there is Ruvena, and Moira, who meets them there, more than ready to laugh at them for inking themselves for 'no bloody good reason'. Barker cannot imagine taking either of the girls to a whorehouse, though he keeps this to himself. Ruvena would have a fit if she thought he was trying to shield her from something.

They drink and joke, and Barker talks Hugh out of an ill-advised game of dice with a couple of very salty sailors, and when he looks up from that he sees Ruvena at the bar, tossing her hair at a man in the uniform of the city guard. It's getting long now, her hair, long and coppery and almost to her shoulders. He cannot help but think it lovely even as he thinks it inadvisable for a templar to wear it so loose. But.

Watching her flirt is painful, because ... he doesn't know. He turns his gaze back to the table, only to see Hugh trying his hardest to get Moira to dance with him.

"No," she says, and Hugh wheedles her shamelessly. It's pathetic, and Barker feels a little sorry for him when Moira laughs in his face. "Fuck off, Hughsie," she says, and turns to Barker, rolling her eyes like every woman Barker's ever known.

A woman sits down beside him. Barker pulls away from the hand she puts on his arm. "Hello, lovely. Looking for a good time?"

It might be flattering if she wasn't working. Barker shakes his head. "No, thank-you."

"Yeah, he's good." It's Ruvena, sinking down on the bench on his other side, and wrapping herself around his shoulder. "My other friend, though, probably would."

The woman smirks and goes around the table to sit down practically in Hugh's lap, and Barker thinks Ruvena will disentangle herself but she doesn't.

"Weren't you making friends at the bar?" he asks, and she chortles, turning her face against his shoulder. 

"Were you _looking_? Oooh, Nicholas, I didn't know you _cared_."

He starts, and does a terrible job of hiding it. "No-one calls me Nicholas," he says, flustered and, and he doesn't know.

"Not even your mother?"

"My _mother_ ," but he stops himself. His mother is his own business and none of hers. "What does your mother call you?"

"'Nuisance'," she says, and tuts at his face. "It's not that bad. All my brothers got worse. 'Terror' and 'Horror' and 'Sin'. 'Nuisance' is pretty good, beside all that. And then there's _Ollie_ , her sweetest little darling. She still calls him 'Baby' and he _hates_ it."

Barker opens his mouth, but Moira is standing up, and manners make him struggle to his feet, despite the weight of Ruvena on his shoulder.

"Hugh's pulled. I'm out," she says, and then of course Barker must offer to walk her to the barge.

Ruvena bitches at him the whole way. "Come _on_ Barks, it's _Barks_ -day. You aren't even half cut. What's wrong with you?"

"I don't know," he says, leaning on the barge rail and staring out across the dark water. What _is_ wrong with him? He should be proud, surely.

If he's honest, it's because Hawke is gone now, and cannot revel in his promotion the way Barker knows he would. He would have made a production of it. Maybe. Maybe, if he really ... but then again maybe he wouldn't have, and the thought makes him feel so much worse.

"Hey." Ruvena tugs his sleeve, voice gone soft and low. "Sorry, Barker. There's not a lot wrong with you, you know. You're all right."

"Thankyou, I suppose?"

She makes a disgusted noise and leans back up against the railing, her eyes shining in the moonlight. "Can't you take a compliment?"

It wasn't much of a compliment, and Barker makes a face, but then-- "I like your hair like that," he says, as much to see what she'll do as anything else. "It's very ... becoming."

For once she doesn't seem to have an answer. One of her hands comes up to pull the hair tight against her neck and then she laughs, weakly. "Thanks. I guess."

They dock, and Barker walks the girls to the women's quarters, and then he goes to his room.

He has a single now, two doors down from the room that had been Hawke's nearly a year ago. It's grand, compared to the quarters he'd shared with Hugh, with a desk and a chair all his own. Lonely, though.

He shucks out of his shirt, kicks off his boots, and sits down to write a letter.

_Dearest Mother,_

_I have today been promoted to the office of Corporal of the Order of Knights Templar. I will, of course, forward the extra pay. Please spend it as you wish. I know Kattie is in need of shoes, and I trust it will be enough to supply whatever else is required to_

There's a rap at the door. Barker has never had anyone knock at his door, so it takes him a moment to understand what it means. Then he's up, throwing the latch, and--

Ruvena pushes her way in, shoving the door closed behind her. "This is stupid," she says, glaring at him.

"What?"

" _Stupid_ , I said. And _you're_ stupid, and I just..." She shakes her head, now glaring at his chest for some reason. "There's _nothing_ wrong with you."

"All right." He doesn't know what to do with his hands so he tucks them behind his back, standing up straight as if he's under inspection. "Did you come all the way over here to tell me that?"

"Of course I fucking didn't!" Now she's angry, and when she takes a step toward him Barker steps back, his hands jerking up between them like a shield. This only seems to make her more angry. " _Barker_. Aren't you even a bit happy about this?"

"About the promotion?"

" _Yes!_ "

"Of course I am," he says, but ... Does she really want to know? "No. Actually. Not very. It isn't ... " but he can't say, _It isn't how I wanted,_ because that's incredibly childish, and he has tried so hard not to be a child about these things. No matter how he'd hoped. He opens his mouth to tell her it's complicated but what comes out is, "I wish Hawke was here."

"I know." Her mouth has gone into a downcurve and he wonders if she's going to cry. Girls do that. His sisters do, anyway, though he has never seen Ruvena cry and the thought of it is terrible. "But he's gone, and it's just you and me, now."

 _What about Hugh?_ he thinks, but Ruvena is glaring at him again, and then she's stepped into his stance, crowding him against the table.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," she growls, and grabs him by the belt, leaning in to kiss him.

Holy Andraste, she's _kissing_ him. He doesn't know what to do but he knows he has to do _something_ , so he braces an arm about her and pulls her against his chest, and tries very hard to kiss her back.

It isn't especially successful. Ruvena pulls back, frowning, and then her hands are tearing at his belt, unbuckling him as if she means to--

"Oh! Oh, yes, of course," he says, babbling like an _idiot_ , and he tries to help but all he does is get in the way. 

"Maker's fucking _balls_ ," she sighs. "Are you always so bad at this?"

But before he can say, _I don't know_ , she tugs him toward the bed and then...

And then. 

He's never done this, not with someone he hadn't paid for (and the less said about those sorry evenings the better) so he isn't expecting the way she insists on things. That he kiss her neck, her breasts, that he put a hand between her thighs as he tongues her nipples, and then a finger inside her as he tongues her below. He's never done _that_ before, and he isn't expecting her to be so sweet there, nor so savoury, wet and delicious, and he isn't expecting the way she pulls his hair as he does it. She shudders under him twice (twice!) before she pulls him up to kiss his soaking wet mouth, hooking her legs about his waist and drawing him in to her.

Her hair is a mess now, her face pink and mouth red, and she laughs breathlessly as he curses, fitting himself up to her and sliding home so neatly it's like sheathing a sword.

"That's it, like that, put your thumb right _there_ ," she says, and he does, and all the while he's thinking, _Maker's mercy,_ and, _Ruvena_ and, _This can't be happening_.

He comes with his mouth on her breast, shuddering helplessly. And then she makes him go down and service her again.

They lie together afterwards, and she lets him run his fingers through her hair, peeling apart the tangles. It's so bright, like spun copper, and when he puts his nose in it he can smell flowers.

"I think you're supposed to report me for fraternisation now," she says, and she sounds so serious that for a moment he thinks she means it.

But then-- "You're right, of course. Shall I wake the Knight-Captain? Or the Knight-Commander?"

She snorts, burying her nose in his armpit. "Can you imagine her _face_?"

"Please don't make me. I'm still ... basking in the afterglow."

She leans up on one elbow to look down at him. Her hair frames her face in a messy halo and he wants very badly to kiss her just now. "Is this okay?"

She sounds uncertain, and he has never heard her sound uncertain before so he decides it must be his fault, somehow. " _Yes_. Ruvena, I don't," and he knows better, really, but the words just come out of his mouth. "You don't even like me."

"Of course I _like_ you. If I wanted to tumble someone I didn't like, I'd run after Nottely, or, or _Caldera_."

"Not Hugh?"

She makes such a face. "Don't ever say 'Hugh' to me in bed again. I'll dry up, I fucking swear."

'Again', she said. He can't help smiling. "Then you plan on making a habit of this?"

"Unless you're going to fuss about fraternisation." She squints at him. "You're _not_ making a fuss about fraternisation. Why aren't you?"

"I'm not a _complete_ idiot," he says, and she grins, and then he _has_ to kiss her.

"Maybe not," she says, settling down on his shoulder. She reaches up to touch the bandage wound about his chest. "Not going to forget this, anyway."

It makes him feel warm, in a way the promotion had not. This, he decides, is much, much better.

He's almost asleep when it occurs to him, and then he cannot help chuckling. 

"What?" she mumbles, her face pressed against his skin. "What's so funny?"

"I just realised that Hugh has a tattoo celebrating ... well, _this_."

She giggles, and he likes the sound of it so much he has to kiss her again, even if it's just the top of her head. "That's _brilliant_. Don't tell him. _I_ want to tell him."

She probably will, too, but Barker can't find it in him to care.


End file.
